Interview with Wojciech Pijecki from Zero Bound

aloa — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:02:27 +0000

This interview is quite different to the one we usually do. Beside working for clients Wojciech Pijecki creats kick ass photoshop tutorials, to teach you his skills. You probably have seen some on the most famous tutorial site PsdTuts.com.

With a click on the picture you may get directly to the tutorial of your chosen design.

1. First of all we would like to thank you for taking the time to provide abduzeedo.com with this interview. Please tell us more about your art and design background and what made you become an artist and designer?

Hello. I've been interested in all kind of art for a very long time. But I never considered me as a graphic designer, I was more into drawing than graphics. Unfortunetely my works never were good enough to get some interest. The person who helped me to get into digital art was my brother. He kinda convinced me that my graphic works were always pretty good and I should follow this direction. So I left my base program, which was Paint Shop Pro 7, and started to learn graphics more seriuosly with Photoshop.

2. Your work is pretty unique and full of creativity. Where does your inspiration come from?

Daily, I search through around 50-100 arts that I find on the internet. I'm always influented by multiple sources, trying to create something new and creative with lots of details and some nice quality. I just learn by watching. Even simple, daily objects work for me as an inspiration. Sometimes I just walk, or rest and some idea just hits my mind from nowhere.

3. Could you describe for us your typical 'start to finish' workflow when working on a design?

It's never easy to create a nice art piece. I change my designs several times before I finish. The thing is easy when you have the right photos. I start by planning what effect I want to achieve. Then comes the hardest part: searching images. When I finally find some satisfying photos, I move forward the way I planned this piece. There are lots of hours of playing with some effects, but it always pays off well. I'm very patient with each design. No matter how long it takes, I go step by step to get the work done.

4. What are your tools of the trade, both hardware and software?

I work on 24' Dell monitor. My machine is Quad Core with lots of ram and some geforce graphic card. Photoshop is definetely my favourite tool, but I also use Xara 3d6 and Cinema 4D as well.

5. What, for you personally are the pros and cons of being a designer?

I must say, the best thing is - I do what I simply love. And what makes the graphic design so interesting, is that there's always something new to discover. It never bores me. As for the cons, well I work at home, and the design sometimes consumes all my time. Especially when the dead line comes, I'm kinda flooded with work. There was a time when I created some project whole day and whole night, something like 24h. Later, I was totally dead ; )

6. How does your job as an artist and designer influence your life? Do you feel that you see things around you differently for example?

That's a very good question. It affects my life pretty well. Now every object has a graphic value for me. Wherever I look, I pay attention how does the realism look like. I mostly focus on lights and shadows. While working on a project, I'm using the directions from real life.

7. What are your coming projects?

I'm creating a new tutorial concept for PSDTUTS, it should be ready by the end of April. Besides I'm working on a project for some contest that I lately found on the web. For more info, check my account soon at http://www.behance.net/zerobound.

8. What are your favourite 5 websites, and why?

Behance.net, great inspiration and people
PSDTuts.com, best tutorials
YouTube.com, fast music/audio stuff whenever you need ; )
Eis.com.pl, there is a cool music forum, where you can get any advice you need about music (ofc in polish language)
DeviantArt.com, great artworks, and graphic resources

9. Once again , thank you very much for the interview. As a final word, do you have any tips for upcoming artists and designers?

Well, I always try to convince people to work patiently and hard. I improved my skills by working alot with colors and shading, so I'd recommend you same thing ; ) Thanks.

Where to find Wojciech Pijecki on the web

Behance.net/Zerobound His personal Behance account
Psdtuts.com/.../Wojciech-Pijecki Wojciech Pijecki's tutorials for Psdtuts.com

More work of this artist

About the author

Aloa is the moniker of the german/greek graphic designer/filmmaker & musician Alexis Papageorgiou. Im glad to share great artistic work with the readers on Abduzeedo. Contact me on aloa@abduzeedo.com or follow my Twitter and Facebook page

Zero